Embarking on a home renovation project is always exciting, and currently, we find ourselves immersed in two distinct room transformations that have us buzzing with anticipation. One is the ambitious **master bathroom overhaul** we introduced last week, a project involving significant demolition and structural changes. The other, however, offers a refreshing contrast: a much lighter, less dusty endeavor focused entirely on enhancing functionality and aesthetics without a single wall being moved. This involves a captivating wall treatment and the addition of exquisite wallpaper, elements that truly delight us.
Our current focus for this gentler makeover is “reconfiguring” the middle bedroom at our beloved beach house. Previously, this compact space was almost entirely consumed by a queen-sized bed, as you can see in its original state:
Juggling a lighter room redo in the background while awaiting crucial orders for our bathroom—such as the tub, vanity, and final tile selections—has proven to be surprisingly enjoyable. Fortunately, we deliberately kept our bathroom fully functional even after **removing walls last week**, allowing us to continue using the space as we patiently wait for supplies and delve deeper into that more intensive project.
But let’s shift our attention back to the middle bedroom, a canvas for demonstrating practical **small bedroom design ideas**. As we meticulously planned this room update, I recognized that our process yielded several straightforward, yet highly effective, tips that could prove invaluable for anyone undertaking a room makeover, regardless of the room’s purpose. I’m eager to share these insights here, along with an update on our progress. While modern design planning often involves high-tech solutions—think sophisticated 3D software, detailed Photoshop mood boards, or even the clever trick I showcased **on Instagram recently**—we’ve adopted a refreshingly low-tech approach for this particular space. This method has been incredibly instrumental in helping us visualize every detail and make confident decisions at each stage of the room’s transformation.
So, for those who find themselves intimidated by complex design software, or who simply prefer a more tangible, real-life visualization process (and believe me, we raise both hands in agreement!), we want to share four practical strategies we employed in this room. These methods have been supremely effective in confirming our design choices and ensuring we’re on the right track. Without giving too much away, I can confidently say the space has already achieved remarkable gains in functionality. Here’s a sneak peek at its evolving state:
Let’s rewind to our starting point and delve into the reasons behind this **beach house bedroom revamp**. For the past two years, this room functioned primarily as a guest bedroom, housing a queen-sized bed, as depicted below. However, a crucial realization emerged: most of our guests gravitate towards the larger front bedroom. Consequently, this middle room remained largely unused. At best, it hosted a single guest—almost always a child, as adults preferred the more spacious front room. We literally never had two people share this bed in its entire two-year tenure.
Last month, we finally confronted this underutilization and decided this space needed to work considerably harder for us. Housing a bulky bed that monopolized the entire room simply wasn’t efficient. Following a page from Marie Kondo’s book, we gratefully acknowledged the faithful service of the bed and nightstands (both cherished leftovers from our second house, serving us for over nine years—**you served us well, Ed!**) and then happily sold them to friends, giving them a new lease on life.
The overarching goal for this **small space design** is to transform it into a truly multi-functional area. We still want to comfortably accommodate guests, but now with a twin bed rather than a queen, acknowledging that it has historically only housed one child at a time. The resulting increased floor space provides the flexibility for a second child to sleep there on a sleeping bag or air mattress if needed. More importantly, it means our own children can now utilize the room for hanging out, assembling puzzles, or engaging in art projects. This shift ensures the room is no longer used just a few times a year but becomes a vibrant, highly functional part of our home.
In many ways, this project echoes **a space we designed for Real Simple**, where we successfully integrated a single-bed guest room with playroom functionality. In fact, we were so enamored with the woven daybed from that project (discover more **here**) that I eagerly seized the opportunity to incorporate **a look-for-less woven daybed** into our beach house! You’ll catch a glimpse of it in a moment.
Now, let’s dive into the four low-tech methods we employed to plan this space, which, I must emphasize, is still very much a work in progress! Nevertheless, I couldn’t wait to share all the exciting developments.
1. Bring In Your Anchor Pieces for Room Layout
This advice might seem obvious, but its importance cannot be overstated. If you possess existing furniture pieces, or if certain items are definite inclusions for your room, introduce them into the space as early as possible. Every subsequent decision becomes significantly simpler and clearer when your “known constants” are physically present, allowing you to visualize the surrounding elements. For our beach house bedroom, this meant **the rug** (which we already owned and loved) and **this beachy woven daybed**. The daybed, in particular, served as the primary launching point for our new **multi-functional room layout**. (Interestingly, we also started with a daybed in **our Real Simple room design**; a large piece of furniture often provides an excellent foundation for planning.)
A daybed is an ideal choice for a dual-function room like this because it effortlessly transforms into a couch or a comfortable lounge area when not actively being used for sleeping. It’s essentially a more sophisticated and versatile version of a futon. Our children can recline on it to read, and frankly, so can we! It creates an inviting spot for people to sit and chat while the kids engage in drawing or games at the nearby desk (more on that in a moment). Suddenly, this once underutilized room radiates immense promise!
Physically bringing the daybed into the room marked a monumental leap forward in understanding how the rest of the space would be organized. A crucial tip here: if possible, avoid ordering other major elements like tables or desks until you’ve seen your anchor piece in the room. This staggered approach offers invaluable flexibility. We experimented with placing the daybed in a couple of different spots, including against the back wall where the old bed resided. Ultimately, positioning it in front of the windows proved to be the most advantageous, maximizing usable wall space for other functions across the room. With the daybed’s final placement established, we could then confidently determine what furniture would best fit opposite it.
2. Tape Things Out for Visualizing Room Dimensions
Painter’s tape has undoubtedly emerged as the unsung hero of this entire planning process, which is why it features prominently in most of today’s photographs. Most notably, we deployed it to meticulously map out the dimensions and spacing for the **board and batten wainscoting** we envision for the room. We aimed for a higher-than-usual application compared to our previous iterations of this project, such as **this cost-effective version in our previous hallway** or **this more elaborate molding in our current home**. We’ll delve into our rationale for the increased height shortly, but for now, observe how the tape allowed us to visualize two distinct spacing options:
Taping out the design not only provided an immediate gut check on the desired height but also made it effortless to determine our preferred spacing option. We settled on the wider 18-inch spacing, believing it will ultimately contribute to the room feeling larger and more open. Plus, it’s a more budget-friendly choice! The approximately 10 minutes it took to test these options with tape was undeniably time well spent.
You might also notice some tape lines adorning the floor in that photo, and in the one below…
This floor taping was our method for meticulously planning the desk area, a significant objective of this **DIY room planning** refresh. Our aim was to integrate a dedicated art space for our children, thereby freeing up our downstairs dining table, which had essentially become their default art surface, keeping it clear and meal-ready. A designated art zone promises to be a complete game-changer! We were initially thrilled to discover that two of these **30-inch white metal desks** would fit comfortably. However, the moment we added placeholder chairs to the layout, they visually overwhelmed the space and created an undesirable closed-in feeling. This realization brings us to our next crucial tip.
3. Bring In Placeholder Furniture to Test Flow
The chairs you see in the aforementioned photo were merely borrowed from our dining room to aid in our visualization. **THIS STEP IS ABSOLUTELY CRUCIAL – DO NOT SKIP THIS!** The brief effort of carrying them upstairs just to assess the spatial dynamics proved invaluable. It unequivocally made us realize that chairs with backs were not the optimal choice for this compact room. They rendered the space significantly more crowded, creating a visual barrier—almost as if the chair backs formed a fence, segregating the desk area from the daybed and making everything feel uncomfortably cramped.
It was at this juncture that I began to seriously doubt our initial plan. Perhaps a double desk was simply too ambitious for this particular room? However, given that nothing had been ordered yet, John and I decided to persist with our low-tech planning methods to see if we could salvage the idea. This led us to a slight, yet powerful, variation of the placeholder furniture concept, which I like to call:
3b. Bring In Placeholder ANYTHING for Creative Solutions
I theorized that the desk situation might improve dramatically if the seating were backless—perhaps a stool, ottoman, or pouf of some kind. Our children had been doing art at **our dining table** for the past two years, which features bench seating and is therefore backless. We even considered a bench for this room, but the idea of plush, cushy stools or ottomans seemed even more comfortable and appealing. They would provide a perfect spot for the kids to sit and draw, without the “fenced-off” sensation that the chairs had created. The only problem? We didn’t have any suitable stools or ottomans on hand to confirm this hunch… so I improvised:
Yes, those are upside-down baskets masquerading as “stools.” And yes, that cube organizer shelf is humbly playing the role of a “desk.” Neither was precisely the correct size, but their presence achieved something far more significant: they utterly convinced us not to abandon the desk idea. This makeshift setup confirmed that a backless seating option, like a plush ottoman or stool, would work perfectly. They wouldn’t visually clutter the room in the way the chairs had. As we considered it further, we realized these backless options could even tuck away completely under the desk, essentially disappearing when maximum floor space was required. OR, THEY COULD BE EFFORTLESSLY PULLED OUT TO SERVE AS CUTE LITTLE COFFEE TABLE ALTERNATIVES FOR THE DAYBED! THE FLEXIBILITY! THE FUNCTIONALITY! (I know, it’s exceptionally exciting. Hence the all caps.)
And that, my friends, is precisely how we arrived at this “still very much a midpoint, but undeniably progress” stage:
We ultimately ordered these two **plush stool ottomans** because they offered the perfect dimensions and were light enough for our children to move with ease. I also appreciated how the subtle gold band at the base complemented some of the other brass accents we intend to retain in the room. Furthermore, we opted for **this single desk** instead of the two metal desks we initially envisioned. Not only is it wider, but it also features two drawers (three cheers for neatly stashing art supplies and pens away when guests arrive!). Its design also lends itself to functioning as a charming little console table setup, which adds a touch of elegance to a guest room.
While it may not be the largest art desk in the world, it is actually more expansive than the one our kids share in our home office, so they are absolutely thrilled! The bonus of having a dedicated space for engaging in fun crafts in a house that previously lacked one has been met with much squealing and excitement. We allowed them to test it out last weekend during our visit, and so far, they’ve given it four marker-covered thumbs up.
And remember my enthusiastic use of all caps when describing the incredible flexibility of those ottomans? They have certainly not disappointed! I absolutely adore how seamlessly they transition into footstools or mini coffee tables when someone is utilizing the daybed as a lounge or reading nook. This singular realization brought me immense joy and affirmed the wisdom of physically mapping out this room in person, rather than relying solely on computer programs, apps, or even graph paper. These digital methods might never have highlighted the cramped feeling created by the chair backs, thereby steering us away from the superior ottoman solution.
This success story brings me to the final technique we employed, which incorporated a touch more technology. Emphasis on “smidge.”
4. Hold The Phone: A Modern Twist for Visualizing Wallpaper
I promised to elaborate on our reasoning for installing the board and batten molding higher than typical in this room. Part of it stems from our belief that it will contribute to a more relaxed, **beachier aesthetic**, enhancing the overall feeling of the space. However, a significant part of the decision is driven by our desire to introduce some fun and colorful wallpaper above it. Between the charming sleeping nooks at the duplex (remember **those delightful wall murals**?!) and the Real Simple room (recall **that eye-catching wallpaper**!?), we are both incredibly enthusiastic about wallpaper. (Okay, John might not use those exact words to describe his passion, but we both previously discussed wanting to wallpaper our dining room back home with something tone-on-tone, soft, yet intrinsically interesting.)
We felt this particular bedroom would be an excellent candidate for something even bolder and more vibrant. The idea of introducing such a pattern above a white-painted wainscoting will maintain a sense of relaxation in the room, preventing it from feeling overwhelmed by pattern. Furthermore, this approach offers a cost-saving benefit by eliminating the need for floor-to-ceiling application on every wall (which would require a substantial amount of wallpaper!).
After an extensive online search, I had narrowed down our options to two distinct wallpapers from Anthropologie: **Alpine** and **Synchronized**. While stylistically quite different, the consistent 20-inch repeat on both patterns meant we could wallpaper the entire room with just two rolls, provided the space above the wainscot was less than 20 inches (another instance where taping off and planning proved invaluable!).
Unfortunately, Anthropologie does not offer samples (a definite “boo!”). So, naturally, I resorted to the next best thing: I opened one wallpaper pattern as large as possible on John’s phone and the other on mine. Then, we stood in the doorway, held both phones up in front of us, and squinted critically at each display.
I know this might sound incredibly rudimentary, even silly, but it achieved precisely what I needed it to. It provided us with a far better understanding of how each option would truly present itself in the room. It immediately became clear that the larger scale of the Synchronized pattern (on the right) would harmonize much better with **our existing rug**. We genuinely loved the pattern on the left, but that simple “stand and squint with your phone” exercise helped me realize that its smaller scale was remarkably similar to the rug’s pattern, creating an odd visual competition. (Ideally, any patterned accent in a room should feature a different scale than another to avoid a “fighting” sensation.) That quick activity undeniably helped us see that **Synchronized** was unequivocally The One, and we placed an order that very same day.
Had we been at home, near our computer or printer, I likely would have been tempted to Photoshop the wallpaper into a picture of the room or print out my own approximation of a sample. But I didn’t, and guess what? I am still absolutely thrilled with the outcome and completely confident that we selected the perfect design. The only minor disappointment is that the wallpaper is currently on backorder until the end of October. Alas, it pains me to type that.
Nevertheless, we still have a considerable amount of work to do in here before we even get to the wallpaper stage, including the installation of the board and batten—which I believe is next on our list. And since our visits to the beach house are currently limited to every other weekend or so, the late October arrival of the wallpaper may, in fact, be perfectly timed after all.
P.S. Craving more insights into planning your next room makeover? We have an abundance! Explore our extensive category devoted to planning (effective planning is truly the fundamental key to creating a space you’ll adore!).
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